A/N: Hi again guys! Hope you haven't forgotten about me. Just finished my longass summer assignment, woo-hoo! So, here's the next installment. Oh, and for now, the section with my character Violet takes place in our world, not Halloweentown. It will continue to be that way until it is very obvious (and when I mean obvious, I mean like me describing her arrival,) that she's no longer in Kansas anymore, so to speak. I hope that you don't mind the relative shortness of my chapters, but I do still have some work to do. Well, short and sweet I like to say. Anyway, enjoy!!!!
-- Elizabeth of Mirkwood-
PS- I don't own anyone in Halloweentown, such as Jack or Sally. It would be ignorant of you to think I did. However, the lovely, pending Violet Morgan is all mine. ______________________________________________________________________________
Jack murmured comforts to Sally though the black shawl that covered her face, as they hurried through the winding streets of Halloweentown at dawn. The town was just beginning to awake, and as Jack ushered his hysterical wife down the road, he heard cries of dismay from various, shady houses. So it was as he suspected. Other creatures were having a similar reaction. But a reaction to what, exactly? They approached the doctor's house, and even through her tears, Sally shuddered. She did not have fond memories of this place. Though she no longer held a huge grudge against Dr. Finklestein, she could not help but feel like a prisoner again, every time she neared his home.
Jack rapped furiously on the door. After waiting a few moments, he started to call. "Doctor! Doctor, please! It's Jack Skellington, I have Sally with me! We need your help!" When no answer came, he knocked again. No reaction from within the house. Jack turned to Sally and threw up an arm is desperation. "Where could he be at this hour of the morning?" Sally was too busy weeping to answer. Jack sighed and took her arm, starting to lead her down the pathway to the twisted wrought iron gates, when the door creaked open. Jack and Sally looked at one another, shrugged, and walked inside.
No lights were turned on, no candles were lit. The only light in the entire house was the pale morning light that leaked through the small parlor windows and a glow that emanated through the cracks of the door to the doctor's laboratory. Jack was about to ask Sally if it was wise to disturb the doctor while he was working, when they heard a far-off voice from behind the ominous door. "Well, are you coming down or not?" The distinctive voice of Finklestein. The couple shrugged and pulled the door open.
They walked tentatively down the ramp that led to the floor of the lab. Partially because, knowing the Doctor very well, they knew that when he was seriously engrossed in any project, he tended to be in a vicious mood. That, and they were both very afraid that Finklestein would tell them the worst, that Sally would never return to her normal self. But to their surprise, as the Doctor came into view, they saw that he was not at the cold, metal tables, dissecting or tinkering. Rather, they saw him in the corner, hunched over in his wheelchair, scrutinizing some piece of paper. A shadow covered his face. "So it has happened." He whispered to no one in particular.
"Excuse me?" Said Jack, one of his long arms firmly around Sally's shoulder. "I'm sorry Doctor, but what has happened?"
At that moment, Dr. Finklestein looked up, the lamp light revealing that he was every bit as alive as Sally. But he was old, his face haggard and wrinkled. His eyes somewhat hazy. "It has affected Sally too?" He asked weakly. As an answer, Sally shrugged off Jack's embrace and allowed her shawl to fall to the ground. The Doctor smiled sadly. "You are a very beautiful mortal, Sally." He said. Even his voice sounded as if it had aged.
"Doctor..." Jack said, trying to keep his voice steady, trying desperately to maintain composition. "What is happening? I don't understand."
"Come over here Jack." Finklestein said with a gesture. "You too Sally. Old age isn't contagious." Jack took Sally's hand and led her to Finklestein, who placed a very old black and white photograph into Jack's bony grasp with a trembling hand. The pictures was of a young lady, no more than nineteen, holding a bouquet of wild flowers, sitting on a lacy chair. She had large dark eyes, thick dark curls and a lovely smile.
"She's charming." Said Jack, "But who is she?"
"That is Katrina Morgan. She is from the Other World, the world that we create Halloween for. A few years ago, she found Halloweentown by mistake."
"How did she find Halloweentown?" Jack demanded.
"Oh now Jack, don't be ignorant. How did you find Christmastown last year? Somewhere in her world there must be a patch of trees. She must've fallen in. Just as you did."
"How long ago was this?" Asked Sally.
The Doctor shrugged. "Who knows. We have little concept of time here. It seems to be just a short while ago, but in her world it could be decades. Maybe even centuries."
"But what does this Katrina Morgan have to do with what has been happening here? What does she have to do with us?"
"Patience, my lad, patience." Finklestein took a deep breath. "It is hard for me to hurry now, even in speaking. Katrina had absolutely nothing to do with this, believe me. When she fond her way here, she barely more than a child. She couldn't have been more than nineteen. Frightened doesn't describe the state she was in...she was terrified. Not the kind of terror we like to induce, either. So, I allowed her to stay with me for a short while..."
"I don't remember this." Sally muttered, whipping stray tears from her flushed cheeks.
"Of course you don't, my dear. It was before I created you. Anyway, she stayed with me for what must have been a month or so, and in that time I learned all about how her world perceives Halloween, what a vital part it is to her personally, what it contributes to her society. It was her favorite holiday, if I remember correctly. Including Christmas, Jack. That's when I realized, that we create Halloween, yes, but if children like Katrina no longer want it, there is no need for us. We exist for them."
Jack blinked. He was too stunned for words. He knew what Finklestein meant, but he didn't dare say it aloud. The Doctor vocalized his fear. "Now is when we begin to fade, Jack. Our time has ended, I fear. Now, being mortal, it is only a matter of waiting."
"We are mortal now." Whispered Sally in disbelief. "So now we begin...to die?"
"Nonsense!" Declared Jack, awaking from his stunned stupor. "We are already dead Sally."
"A mortal death, Jack, is quite different." Reasoned Finklestein. "Not even mortals know what lies beyond it." Sally, defeated, sank to the floor, burying her face in her hands, too devastated for tears. But Jack would not give in to his dread. He stood straight, his seven feet of height was quite a sight to see at that moment.
"I am still the way I have been forever." He proclaimed, feeling the Pumpkin King that was within him rise to the surface. "If I have not changed yet, there is still hope."
"Jack, my lad." Finklestein said softly, sympathetically, "Go outside and look at the sky. It is already beyond our control." In a desperate rage he did not fully understand, Jack bounded up the ramp and out of the laboratory. Sally looked up at her creator.
"What will he see, Doctor?" She whispered fearfully.
Finklestein then sighed a sigh that belongs only to the very old, when a whole lifetime of exhaustion rests upon their shoulders. "You must look for yourself, Sally my dear. I can only say this...if Katrina is still alive, she will make every effort she can to prevent this awful fate. Now you must leave me, dear. I am very weary."
By the time Sally reached the front door, Jack was sitting in the middle of the road with his long legs crossed, his chin in his hands. His face was stricken with hopelessness. Sally looked up at the sky and gasped. The jack-o-lantern had faded from the Halloweentown sun. It was nothing put a simple ball of flame.
TBC.....(hopefully soon)